Through Tainted Glasses...

Dec 22, 2022
3 min read

Maybe we are only one meaning away from connection...

Holidays, especially end-year celebrations are meant to be a time we come together with family and friends to connect through the year's memories. Walking down the highs and lows of the last 365 days is a tradition many look forward to. But this is a supposed norm that considerable individuals do not experience. Why? The pain of family-impacted traumas and decades of unconfronted pain.

This is not another attempt to tell you how humanity is broken and how much healing we need, but the fact remains that we are a connection-starved yet connection-based species. And no matter how far we want to run from the very thing that seems to hurt us the most, we also crave to be seen, heard, and upheld by those who mean the most to us.

The Cost of Trauma

After doing a lot of reading and listening to a lot of specialists in the psychology field like Dr. Caroline Leaf, Dr. Nicole Lepera, and Dr. Gabor Mate, I now understand that trauma is an unhealed emotional wound, yet to be attended to. The thing about trauma is that it sneaks up on us in very 'normal' ways. Sadly, the price of keeping this norm is that we do not connect as we truly are but as we make experiences mean based on our tainted glasses; past wounds, and trauma.

It's a lot... I hear you! I know too well because it has cost me too much already as well. But what if we can start cleaning our lenses?

What if we committed to meeting each other where we are and not where we got stuck in the past?

How?

Tip #1 - What meaning are we giving our experiences?

An eye-opening truth I've learned this year is that we tend to copy-paste meanings from how we perceived similar experiences in the past, especially when we were kids.

An angry parent = I did something wrong = I do not deserve this connection. Today; A frustrated spouse = I did something wrong = I do not deserve this connection.

Is this true? Or I'm I unconsciously swallowing a mirror?

Tip #2 - Are we willing to seek understanding?

In most cases, we do not go deep enough into our connections because we are not seeking to understand the other side of the story. One experience could be interpreted as many times as there are the people experiencing it.

"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." – ANAIS NIN.

Tip #3 - Do we have the courage to make the invitation to connection?

True connection is feeling seen, heard, and upheld while seeing, hearing, and upholding. This can only happen when we lay down our guard by being willing to hold our meanings in one hand while also holding the other person's meaning in the other hand.

Tip #4 - What if I fail?

Connection is not one-sided. It takes two to tangle but one to untangle. In as much as it would be easier, we cannot 'make' the other want to understand why we are drawing a certain meaning from an experience.

Authentic connection also means allowing others to choose not to understand without taking it personally.

Inner connectedness is the solid foundation from which you extend outer connections. All facets of your personality have to be connected within so that you can allow others to hold their perspectives without you taking them personally.

Tip #5 - It starts with me...

In her book, The Connection Process; Teal Swan says;

We are no longer in a place where we can wait for compassion to spontaneously occur. We now have to take steps to build capacity for it within ourselves. And it all begins with practising compassion towards the disowned fragmented aspects within us.

Build a solid connection within yourself so you can build authentic connections outside yourself.